Weekly Photo Challenge: The World Through Your Eyes

It’s been i while i know. A lot of work going on so not much time to post. Besides that we are in a really different time here in Brasil. In the last two weeks a totally new kind of awakening is moving millions of Brasilians to protest. We realized we are totally fed up with our representatives. I’m talking about years of abuse. In a country where a teacher can makes as low as 600 US a month the average salary of a senator going around 30000 US. I’m talking about people being treated on the floors of the Er’s for the lack of beds and sometimes even needles and things like that. And with all this the government decides to host the fifa world cup here spending 28 billion US in infrastructure. This is more than what was spent in the last 3 cups altogether. Corruption. That’s why Brasilians are protesting. It’s a really pacific protest with some localized spots of vandalism. I guess when 2 million people go to the street all sort of individuals show up and not all have the same agendas. What is amazing me in all this is the coverage the nacional and international press is show of this protests. I just saw in tv the violence and depredation of these small groups. I guess this sells more newspapers. So i decided to show you friends some shots i took in the protests. I was there for 3 days and i saw no violence. Just complaints against absurd laws congress are voting like PEC 37 were police is prohibited to investigate members of the congress (yes…they are voting that right not). Complaints about the prices to build stadiums. Most importantly. It’s making the politics crazy. Normally most protests starts in a political party and people are called to action. In this case there are no parties. Parties even tried to appear and raise their flags but the people forced them to put the flags down so no party would benefit from the protest. It’s a really amazing show of democracy. And here are some shots….

When the law is no more?

Something interesting happened this week here in Brasil. Some of you may enjoy reality shows. I find some interesting and some annoying but the one i’ll talk about is a really bad one. Supposed to be the father of all reality shows the Big brother had a really successful carrier all over the world and specially in Brasil. In it’s 12 edition the show is the most watched show all over the country. All these explanations so you can get my point. Last week something really absurd happened. I saw news over the web about a video from the night before. If some don’t know about Big brother the put more or less a dozen people in a house for three months or so. Each week one is voted to leave the house. The last person in the house wins around a million bucks. More than 200 cameras film these people 24/7 and the audience seams to get interested in watching this. So there was a video and something bad happened in it. I saw the video out of curiosity and it was like this: Girl and boy go to room. She is really drunk and he is not much. The infrared cameras see it all. They lay under the mattress and kiss twice. She says she don’t want it and pull him away. She is really drunk. After a couple minutes she stop moving. She passed out. The guy gets closer and start moving under the mattress. It’s clear what he is doing on the major network of a almost 200 million people’s country. He is raping her. I was so shocked i started looking all over the web “demanding” an attitude from the TV station. Nothing. I got desperate. Is it possible it will just pass by as nothing happened? Next morning i looked again and some things happened. The TV station and it’s partner google took the footage i saw from youtube. Next night the show mentioned something about the “lovebirds” leading people to believe it was something else. Only the beginning of the video was showed when the girl was still awake. In older days this would go as i’m telling you guys and as we say here in Brasil it would all end in “pizza”!! Nothing would be done. So this morning after posting in twitter and facebook all i could on the case i decide to write a post called “when the law is no more”. That tittle was about my indignation towards the law these days. It’s too subjective. If you have money enough you can kill and get away with it easy. If you have none you will go to jail for shoplifting medicine even if you are an old man in need. I know i case just like that. A TV station can decide to get away with rape and nobody can do something about it and so it goes. That was my tittle and 10 years about that would be my post. Not much has changed. The rich still have a different way to deal with the law. The powerful can do mostly anything. But something changed. Just a bit. And i think it’s amazing and this story proved that to me. As myself thousands of other people in twitter and facebook complained about this fact. As i understood the news the TV station was really happy because they were gaining a lot of notice on the web and the show would probably be even more powerful. The director of the show mentioned those were racist comments because the guy was black!!! He could be green and nothing would have changed!! The guy raped a girl in national TV!! Probably this thing about racism was well thought by a group of public relation guys. Probably the lawyers were all in hand. But a couple hours ago i got the news i had to change my tittle and what i did was to put an interrogation mark. Something good happened. The police invaded the TV station and asked to hear the two involved right away. There was a fuzz and the show was off the air. The news just mentioned that the guy was disqualified and would have to leave the show. After that the guy would be questioned by the cops. Not because of the TV station but because of the thousands of people complains on the web. Somehow this lobby made the difference in this case. Somehow it gave me a little taste of the “power emanated from the people”. People were heard and someone took action over it. People with no money got what they think it was fair and the TV station have to give with no way out. So maybe there’s a channel here. If well used it could help our voices to be heard even in this world where the law “is no more”???

An overrated “Art”

Ok…Now you’ll think i’m bipolar. lol … Just after my emotional post about the end of this year and all the friends i made and adventures i lived here comes a post that may not be totally pleasant. I’m not writing it to be unpleasant but it is kinda. Not because it’s sad but because it’s contrary to an aspirational and cheering notion. The notion that photography has to do with life. The notion that this echo that we call representation of life is something more than the denial of death. That ss something more than the need to savor the moment that is long gone. These days the aesthetics are important for some but the majority are interested in the moments. The part of the universe that was “captured” and it’s been displayed for as long as one can fancy it’s qualities. I really love these moments so that’s why i think a lot about the subject and despite the fact that it is a joy to look at a great photographer’s work my point is: This is not alive and it doesn’t mean anything more than an echo. Even if these photos were invented and not natural at all. Even if there was a studio and all clothes and hairs were fake still there was a moment. A real one. And these photos are the echoes of these moments. They are dead. I’m writing this thinking about artists. Most live ones especially those i know and can comment about with property do their work in an attempt to extent their lives. To be there even when they are not. To create an immortal Ego. Of course history shows us some personalities that maybe didn’t follow this logic but most do. I just believe totally in artists that burned everything they have done and nobody saw it ever (an idea that is kinda hard to materialize). So what is cheering about this post is the following: Just what i’m saying is that art is overrated and sometimes life is underrated. Sometimes it takes much more genius to live at old age after sight is gone and taste is gone but the sounds of life and the warm sun have to suffice. And people do that everyday! Picasso maybe couldn’t do it…so where is the fame and fortune for these people?? Why what they do is not more artistic than what we see in museums? That’s why my new year’s resolution is the widely quoted and beat up monologue from the film trainspotting:  “Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suit on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life” …and fuck the need to know what comes after you die and how will you look 500 years from now and what future societies will think about you. Let’s live and enjoy our time!